Dreams in the Tower Part 3 (7 page)

The half-light coming in from the bathroom ignited Jason’s sleeping form, his glistening bare flesh shining in the pale glow. Dellia stared longingly for a moment then pulled her bag up onto her bed and stuffed the vaccine case into the part that held all her clothes. She wrapped it in one of her shirts for safe measure, though she knew it would make little difference to anyone who knew to look for it. With that secured, she zipped up the bag, now as full as it was going to be, and slung it onto her back. With one last glance at Jason, she placed the vial that was in her hand on top of a scrap of paper sitting on Jason’s side of the bedside table. The note was short—only a few sentences—but it had taken her half an hour to come up with the right words to say.

That was it. She turned her back on this brief beautiful moment in the savage mess of her life and walked quickly and quietly to the door and out of the room.

She found the captain sitting alone in his wheelhouse, which was dark except for the subtle glows of his console screen. “So are we on time?” she asked in a hushed voice, taking a seat on her normal stool.

“I almost thought you were a deckhand without your hair,” Lester said uninterestedly. “Look.” He pointed out through the window towards the front of the ship, and Dellia noticed for the first time how close the lights were: they were almost there.

Suddenly, she really did not want the ship to go those last kilometers.

“Clearance from the port,” Lester said. “We’ll be docked in less than a half hour. If you don’t mind, I can’t talk much once I start taking her in. Concentration and all.”

“Of course.” She reached her hand into her pocket, grasped the small cylindrical object she found there. “Anyway” she said, “I’ll want to go down on deck so I can hop off as soon as I can.”

He shook his head. “Not immediately. You’ll be hiding in the stack until you see me flash the wheelhouse lights. Then you can get down the plank as quick as you can.”

“Okay,” she said faintly.

They sat in silence for a while, watching the lights, yellow and orange and ghostly neon, come closer and closer. “Lester, I want to say thank you,” Dellia said. “For everything.”

Reddish light bathed his face as he pulled on the cigarette between his lips. “You know this was just another job,” he muttered.

“I know.” She got up and crossed over to him. Taking his thickly callused hand into her own, she pressed the little vial of vaccine into his palm and closed his fingers. “Find a vein. Pop the cap.”

He said nothing. Had he been expecting this? She decided no formal goodbyes were needed, so she left to go find a place in the stack of containers where she could see the wheelhouse lights. As she descended the stairs she thought she glimpsed him, by the hazy radiance of his cigarette, leaning over the crook of his arm, wasting no time in protecting himself. When he was out of sight she got the feeling of being completely, terribly alone.

Right back where she had started.

26

Sitting by the curtained window in the deep dark of the hotel room, Chris Colmin shifted uncomfortably. From somewhere in the void to his left came the sounds of slow, nasally breathing as Alana slept off her post-sex drowsiness. He wanted to join her, but this was one of those nights where he just could not get comfortable; the bed was too hot and the covers felt abrasive on his bare skin. Even this cool leather chair was starting to become unbearable, no matter how he moved around in it.

Agitated and weary, he rose to his feet and turned to the window, pulling back the heavy curtains just enough to fill the room with a pale reflection of D.C.’s city lights. He stood there, ten floors up, looking down on the street below through the grimy glass. If someone looked his way from down below or across the street it could be bad: a Texas senator in a downtown hotel window at 3:30 a.m. wearing nothing but a pair of briefs was easy fodder for the media’s sensationalists. But he didn’t really care. He knew he should, but he didn’t. Maybe he was just too tired to care.
Fuck it all, why can’t I sleep?

Turning his back on the orange-and-yellow glow of the restless city, his eyes found the pale form of Alana, wrapped up in the flowing blankets like they were some kind of linen cocoon. Did caterpillars dream when they were in the cocoon?
Doesn’t matter
, he decided. She did not appear to be sleeping deeply enough to be dreaming anyway; she was too serene, her face too content—too attached to the living world to be wandering through dreamscapes. Maybe that was why he didn’t feel bad about waking her up so she could share in his misery. He went over to the bed, sat on the edge and gently shook her by the shoulder.

“Hmm?” she said, just a little groggily. “No, I’m awake. Is it time already?”

“Not quite,” Chris said. “I want to talk.”

Alana sat up, stretching ever so slightly, and stood her pillow up against the headboard so she could lean back against it. She let the blankets fall away, revealing pale pink nipples on breasts that weren’t quite as high and firm as they probably once were. “Talk about what?”

“What we were discussing earlier. During dinner.”

She sighed, long and full of weariness. “I told you before, even if I didn’t have moral and ethical objections to an illegal relationship with a corporate entity, there’s simply too much at stake for me. It’s no big deal for a libertarian to get caught in bed with big business, but
my
party would make sure I never held political office again. You’re forgetting which side I’m on here.”

“I know exactly which side you’re on,” Chris said, calmly but with ice in his voice. “The losing side. You know as well as I that Silte Corp owns too many people in this city to not end up on top, whatever that may mean in the end. You’ve seen for yourself what happens to people who oppose them.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“I’m trying to help you.” He could see now that she was much more interested than she had been at dinner. Maybe he had her already. But just to be safe…

“Tell me,” he said, “why did you take this job? You knew what it was, what it has been for many years. Set aside all this political bullshit for a second. Do you really care what Silvan or anyone else does, in the end?”

“Well, no,” Alana said. “I mean, I don’t agree with the bloodshed and violence, but why should I care what Silvan does? If anything, his actions give me plenty of fuel to rile up the voters for my next reelection campaign.”

“Exactly.” Chris grinned triumphantly. “You can use Silte Corp’s success to your benefit. So why not help them help you? Being a friend of the giant can do great things for your political career. You know, I wasn’t exactly the public’s first choice for senator.”

That got her full attention. “Are you saying,” she said, “that you were involved in rigging an election?”

“How naïve of you, Alana.” He exaggerated the sarcasm.

“Point taken.” She shivered and pulled the blanket up over her chest. “But that doesn’t mean I approve. I don’t want that kind of help, not when I have to sell my soul to get it. I
won’t
be anyone’s slave.”

“You make it sound so dirty. You wouldn’t be a slave so much as a—a friend. Friends do favors for friends.” Her look of skepticism told him he had reached a dead end with this line of argument.
Christ, Alana, how I misjudged you!
He would have to try a new tactic, his final, desperate gambit. If this didn’t work, well, he might have to struggle through the next few weeks until he found another congresswoman who was mistress material, not that finding someone new was something he wanted to do; unlike his previous short-term flings and office romances, he was actually starting to really like Alana. 

“Okay, you won’t do it for money and you won’t do it for personal gain.” He sighed, leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands out in front of him, and he cast his face down in a show of defeat; if she was going to buy it he had to sell it to her. “Congratulations. You’re the rarest of the rare: a senator with some shreds of conscience left.”

“Or I’m just smart.”

“You are,” Chris said looking up at her. “And I’m sorry I tried to drag you into this. It’s just… It’s just…” Now he needed to throw everything he had into it. He knocked down the mental barrier that held back real, authentic human emotions; he needed this to be genuine and he had more than enough fear and inner turmoil to make that happen.

“It’s just too much for me,” he said. “The pressure. The expectations. The media. It’s just too much. I was only in my first term in the Texas Senate when I ran for this seat. I was just testing the waters for the future. I mean, I had enough money for a trial run, so why not? I never expected to be here, and now all of the others look down on me because I’m too inexperienced to do the job. Most of them were representatives or state leaders before this.” He turned his head away for a moment; maybe she would think he was tearing up, have more sympathy.

“The thing is, Alana,” he said, facing her again, “I’m terrified. I don’t want to be involved in this any more than you do. I never even wanted to be here, not so soon, but when the most powerful corporate entity in modern history says they want you in office, you can’t exactly turn them down. I was scared of Silte then and I’m scared of them now. I’m so scared of them that I can’t do anything but be their loyal servant. Silvan’s own little puppet in Washington.

“And I’m lonely. You’re the only one in this rat-infested shithole of a city who I can trust. You’re my only friend. So please,
please
help me. Don’t do it for money, or yourself, or Silte. Do it for me. You care about me, right?”

“I—I do.” She was strangely blank; speechless, perhaps. “I do. And I want to help you. I just—”

The piercing howl of the alarm clock cut her off. Chris stood up sharply and went over to turn the little thing off. When he turned back to her he said, “You were about to say something?”

“No. Nothing. We should get going. If we’re out too much later the aides will come looking for us.”

As Alana padded, naked, off to the bathroom, Chris ran his fingers through his hair and reached for his pants, carefully draped over a chair. He allowed himself a victorious smile. She may not have shown it on her face or said anything definitive yet, but Chris knew he had just gotten the hardest part of the job done.
One down, four to go.
And he had a feeling, as he pulled his pants on and looked for his belt, that to find four people who liked money and personal gain a lot more than Alana he wouldn’t have to go far. Not in this city.

27

When Jason woke up and felt the emptiness in his bed and in the room, he knew Dellia was gone. He knew somehow before noticing her missing backpack and clothes and before discovering the note on the bedside table.

And when he saw what was resting on top of the folded piece of paper he was sure.

The note she had left was painfully short: ‘I have to go on alone. This is very hard for me, but I have to do it. Don’t try to follow. Use the vaccine immediately. When this is over, if we’re both still alive, find me here.’ On the bottom of the slip of paper were what appeared to be a set of very specific coordinates. Jason used the notepad feature in his ultra-secure non-E app to jot the numbers down then used a match to burn the note, watching the flames consume the paper with a mixture of hurt and frustration, the fire turning his last bit of brightness into ash and little embers that quickly disappeared in the air.

Now he was truly alone.

In a numb state of semi-shock, he took the vial and stuck the little needle in a vein in the crook of his arm, popping off the second cap with his thumb and watching the clear liquid disappear into his bloodstream. He then went about his typical morning routine in a sort of mechanical half-awareness. He had to dig in his backpack for some of the things he had already packed away with the expectation that he would be going to shore with Dellia today.
Why did you have to do it? Why couldn’t I have helped you?
He tried not to dwell on these maddening questions as he brushed his teeth and put on the clothes that looked the freshest, but he could not escape them; her smell was still on him from the night before. He left the bathroom and found his half-empty growler of beer. He took a sip—and gagged on the tepid black liquid, nearly spitting it out everywhere. What was he thinking, anyway? Would this make her come back? He took the bottle into the bathroom and turned it upside-down in the sink, letting the ale bubble out, down through the drain and eventually to the ocean.

The growler still glugging into the sink, he went to Dellia’s bed and sat on it. He lowered himself onto her pillow and breathed in deeply; it was full of her scent, the delicate imprint she had left behind to torment him. He might’ve stayed like that, his face buried in her pillow all day until her smell began to fade, but just then three booming knocks on the door brought him back to the real world.

Startled, Jason got up and crossed the room, taking a deep breath before slowly opening the door. Standing in the hall was one of the crew, a man with skin as dark as the sea and a head of close-cut black hair with ornate swirling designs shaved into it. Jason recognized the man as one of the deck bosses who was often with the captain.

“Cap’n say come you to well-house,” the deck boss said in a thick African accent. “He need you dere.”

“Okay,” Jason said, not having the slightest clue why the captain would want to see him. “I’ll go up in a little while.”

“No,” the deck boss said. “Cap’n say come now. Say carry you I if you not come now.”

“I’m coming,” Jason said. “No problems.”

The deck boss turned to lead the way and Jason was left wondering why the captain needed him so badly. Was Jason about to get kicked off the boat? After all, Dellia was the important one and now she was gone. He was merely another disposable pawn used for getting her where
they
wanted her. Now they could cast him off to fend for himself in a world where everyone who mattered wanted him captured…or dead. But maybe being kicked off the boat here wouldn’t be so bad. He could always look for Dellia, as impossible as it would be to find her. In fact, that seemed like the best idea in the world right now.

The deck boss stopped at a flight of stairs to the side of the hallway. They curved and went up beyond Jason’s sight, vanishing into the unknown. Up there lay either his death or his salvation; whichever one it happened to be was out of his hands, just as it always was, just as it had been from the moment he had befriended the cunning, awkward Stephanie Washington so many years ago. That day had changed the course of his entire life, even if it had taken a decade to fully manifest.

He went up the stairs, emerged into the musty wheelhouse.

“Jason Delaney,” Lester said, his voice muffled by a cigarette pressed between his lips. He was sitting across the room on a wide chair behind a cluster of panels with knobs and switches and a large screen. “You know, I had no idea who you were, really, when they told me you were gettin’ on this boat. Joans.” He said the last word almost as an afterthought, but it made Jason’s gut clench anxiously nonetheless.

“Where did you hear that name?” he said, as firm as he could manage.

Lester chuckled. “Anyone in the movement who cares about history knows that name. You’re sort of famous.”

Now Jason was really confused. “You’re involved with them?” he said. “I mean, like really an active member? Not just someone on their payroll?”

After some silence Lester said, “Doesn’t matter. I know my history and I know who you are. I know what you can do and I think from now on you’re gonna do it for me—for us.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Joans,” Lester said simply.

“Yes?”

“In a few hours, when we’re out to sea, I’m gonna show you some tech you’ve never seen before. Stuff that hasn’t even been invented yet, as far as consumers are concerned. And you’re going to use that stuff to help us take down Silte.”

For a while Jason considered that. “Fair enough,” he said eventually. “But first tell me which faction you’re with.”

“The one that wants to take down Silte Corp,” Lester said sardonically, “and send Silvan plummeting out of his penthouse window to be a stain on the road. Does it matter who I’m with?”

“Guess not,” Jason said. “And what if I refuse?”

The captain sighed, blowing out a cloud of smoke at the same time. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to say this,” he said, “but whatever.” He took two long drags on his cigarette before continuing. “If you refuse then you stay onboard anyway, and who knows? Maybe two, three days out to sea you lose your balance and fall over the rail, never to be seen again.” He turned and looked right at Jason. “It’s up to you.”

That settled it, then. Jason didn’t know what, exactly, this man and his associates wanted, but he knew for certain that he couldn’t swim the distance a boat could travel in three days.

“I guess I have no choice,” he said.

“Good,” the captain said. “Meet me down at the stack in half an hour. It’s time you saw what’s
really
going on around here.”